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Weekend Links: Harry Potter Gets a Makeover

After 15 years, Harry Potter is getting a makeover. Graphic novelist Kazu Kibuishi is providing all-new cover illustrations for a re-release of the series in trade paperback form.

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In the wake of Valentine’s Day, check out Justin Timberlake’s latest pop expression of love to…himself? With lyrics like “if I could, I would look at us all the time,” JT’s “Mirrors” is an eight-minute ode to his own reflection that may be a convoluted metaphor for a relationship, but is an equally effective anthem to sing to your own reflection in the mornings—hairbrush mic optional.

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Think back: regardless of relationship status, how loved did you feel on Thursday? A heartening survey from the Gallup Organization, conducted the day after Valentine’s Day 2012, reports that 81% of Americans felt cherished on the Hallmark holiday. An additional breakdown ranks the 163 respondents’ home countries in order from most to least loving; if you can, hug an Armenian.

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A less cheery study has found that the average reading level of each successive State of the Union address has steadily decreased over time. The most recent address by President Obama was approximately at a level comprehensibleto a 14-year-old.

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This illustrated slideshow of bodybuilders over the past 150 years features striking images of muscled men and women both, but even better than the photos are the nicknames the athletes bore: “Pudgy,” “The Iron King,” and “The Austrian Oak” among them.

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This dog has a face like a human. The poodle-shih tzu mix is up for adoption, if you can handle having him look at you like that all the time.

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Forget online dating. The New York Review of Books features delightfully clever personal ads from readers like “FRISKY COUGAR, 84” seeking a partner with whom to “share walks from parking lots to doctors' offices,” but warns him, “Don’t anticipate LTR.”

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Also on Mental Floss:

DID YOU KNOW? Marlon Brando hated memorizing lines so much that he posted cue cards everywhere to help him get through scenes.
He even asked for lines to be written on an actress's posterior. (That request was denied.)